Monitoring population dynamics in the Pearl River Delta from 2000 to 2010

Abstract

Although numerous literatures have documented the monitoring of population distributions and dynamics for socio-economic development, environmental protection, and urban planning on different scales, little attention has been paid to long-term and multi-frequency population evolution on urban agglomeration scale, especially in non-census years. Furthermore, although multi models have been applied to population spatialization based on night-time light imagery (NLT) and census data, their accuracy needs to be further improved. Selected the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China as the study area, this work aimed to solve the aforementioned problems by constructing the residential extent extraction index (REEI) and employing the population growth theory and ‘DN density–population density’ model. Results indicated that the proposed approaches were feasible to optimize NTL products and simulate populations in both census (2000, 2010) and non-census (2005) years. Population evolution in the PRD presented distinct differences from space and over time, and mainly driven by socioeconomic development.

Keywords:

• DMSP/OLS
• the residential extent extraction index
• population spatialization
• non-census years
• urban agglomeration
• driving force

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.